Re: UKNM: free local calls baloney

[Clay Shirky]

> Actually, the thing that winds me up about all this unmetered baloney is

> that access may be unmetered in the US but it's not free - subscribers pay

> fairly large monthly rentals for the privelege of unmetered local calls


Hogwash.


I live in NYC - a pricey town, as you may have heard, and I have two

phone lines. I pay 8 pounds 56 in for both lines, and thats it for

"montly rental" - all other costs are local connects at someplace

between 2.3 pence and 6.6 pence per call, depending on the time of

day.


> pick up a handset in a US home right now and there's a decent chance

> you won't get a line out of the exchange.


Also wrong - the capacity crunch is not at the local switch, where the

connect rate is nearly perfect - the capacity crunch is for intra-urban 

connections like NY-SF during peak hours, which, ironically, is just

the sort of scenario that voice-over-ip will help ameliorate.


-clay


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